// Comparison

Crypto Dictionary vs La science du secret: Which Should You Read?

Two cybersecurity books on Cryptography, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.

Beginner

4/52021

Crypto Dictionary

500 Tasty Tidbits for the Curious Cryptographer

Jean-Philippe Aumasson

Jean-Philippe Aumasson's alphabetical, opinionated reference on cryptographic terms, primitives, attacks and folklore. Snack-format companion to Serious Cryptography.

Intermediate

4/51998

La science du secret

Jacques Stern

A lucid popular-science history of cryptography by Jacques Stern, one of France's most eminent cryptographers — from classical ciphers to public-key and the science of secrecy.

Read this if

Anyone who reads cryptography papers, blog posts, or CTF write-ups and keeps hitting half-remembered terms. Keep it on your desk: 500 entries, each a paragraph or two, alphabetical, opinionated. The crypto reference you'll actually use.

Curious readers who want an authoritative yet accessible story of cryptography, written by a leading researcher rather than a populariser. A French counterpart to The Code Book, with more of a mathematician's insight.

Skip this if

Readers wanting a textbook flow or systematic foundation. The book is a dictionary by design; pair with Real-World Cryptography (Wong) or Serious Cryptography (Aumasson) for sequential learning.

Engineers wanting implementation guidance or modern (post-2000) primitives; it's a 1998 popular-science history, not a deployment manual.

Key takeaways

Aumasson's opinionated entries ("don't use", "use this instead", "avoid for this reason") condense decades of practitioner judgment into one-paragraph verdicts.
Term coverage spans symmetric, asymmetric, hash, post-quantum, side-channel, and crypto-folklore; few references this small are this comprehensive.
The book's value compounds over time: every paper or write-up sends you back to it.

Popular cryptography history written by a top-tier cryptographer (Stern, ENS), so the science is impeccable.
Traces the arc from classical ciphers to public-key — the conceptual leaps, not the code.
A French equivalent of The Code Book with a researcher's eye; dated on modern primitives but timeless on fundamentals.

How they compare

Crypto Dictionary and La science du secret are both rated 4/5 in our catalog. Pick by topic preference and reading style rather than by rating.

Crypto Dictionary is pitched at beginner level. La science du secret is pitched at intermediate level. Read the easier one first if you're not yet comfortable with the topic.

Crypto Dictionary and La science du secret both cover Cryptography, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.

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